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Confused about Tannoy

Yikes. Though I must say, watching Kevin Deal’s videos gives me more of a Benny Hill vibe.
 
FN19 said:
Hi Andrewd.

They were given 4 weeks. I didn’t notice any improvement over this time. if anything (though may have been psychological) they got worse. Probably down to my dread of playing them. They annoyed me that much I got my wife, friends and family to give opinion. All a resounding, “no, get rid”
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What were the other parts of your setup ?
 
FN19 said:
Hi Andrewd.

They were given 4 weeks. I didn’t notice any improvement over this time. if anything (though may have been psychological) they got worse. Probably down to my dread of playing them. They annoyed me that much I got my wife, friends and family to give opinion. All a resounding, “no, get rid”
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I would certainly be annoyed with that if paying the eye-watering retail price for these (if anyone actually pays this, I get the impression that there is quite a margin for negotiation).

The only time I ever bought brand new speakers was Dynaudio Contours 16 years ago. The dealer warned that they would sound terrible straight out of the box and offered to run them in for me. He hooked them up facing each other and connected out of phase and ran them at moderate volume non stop for four days. They sounded great as soon as they were installed in my system.

Since then I have only bought used speakers where the original owner takes the huge depreciation hit and endures the break-in period. From threads I have read on the Arden, the break in period can take up to a year.

Also interested to hear what your other equipment is and what speakers you ended up settling for.
 
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Mick P said:
This is a discussion that will never end. Tannoys are expensive, bulky and sound beautiful. The problem is that Tannoy owners tend to be the nerdy end of speaker ownership. I do not say this as a criticism but they are the sort of people who will spend weeks moving the speakers half an inch one way or another in order to get the best sound. Their arm chair is also perfectly positioned with the perfect rug placed on the floor with the tassels groomed in perfectly straight lines etc. They experiment whether it should be 12" or 15" etc in their quest for sound nirvana.

You also have the problem of Coatbridge or foreign made and what percentage degree of each is it. The argument is as much based on anecdote as it is on fact. Now we have the added complexity of Fyne run by ex Tannoy managers and it's causing a bit of a tizz and the nerds are running around like headless chickens arguing about it.

The simple answer is to listen to the things playing music and just compare the sound but then you get the problem of subjectivity which will never go away.

Until audiophiles learn the ability to come to a decision on what is the overall best system for their ears, they will forever remain unhappy.
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Think potentially we are all a bit nerdy about are preferred brands/set ups,but we are all entwined with a common interest..

Then perhaps its how far we go to achieve or justify are tweaks..

Categorizing people by their equipment branding is not for me..

Do not spend weeks weeks tweaking speakers...

Have heard Tony Ls sounding marvelous with good scale in a normal room, no insulation tape marking positions.....

I have moved my Cheviots more than a few inches,a few meters out of system....

I know they need a big cabinet to sing,and not going down the cabinet and crossover route its silly expensive....

The kef 105 and 801 surpass them by a lot....


..
 
Craig's Legacy Arden use a rubber surround not the ubiquitous M roll, I returned a new pair of D700 years ago when they refused to soften up/ break in, Tannoy supplied a replacement pair that were fine, so it's far to say some dogs do get through QC.
I have to say I wasn't too enamoured with a pair of modern Canterburys that use the M roll, they were quite hard and lean sounding for such a big loudspeaker and nothing like as engaging as earlier Canterburys. Fraserking of this parish also had a very disappointing experience with hard edge HPD recone 'upgrade' from Lockwood. All FWIW but also worth bearing in mind that you can very easily make Tannoys sound pretty awful by listening on axis with the energy turned up....
 
Mick P said:
This is a discussion that will never end. Tannoys are expensive, bulky and sound beautiful. The problem is that Tannoy owners tend to be the nerdy end of speaker ownership. I do not say this as a criticism but they are the sort of people who will spend weeks moving the speakers half an inch one way or another in order to get the best sound. Their arm chair is also perfectly positioned with the perfect rug placed on the floor with the tassels groomed in perfectly straight lines etc. They experiment whether it should be 12" or 15" etc in their quest for sound nirvana.

You also have the problem of Coatbridge or foreign made and what percentage degree of each is it. The argument is as much based on anecdote as it is on fact. Now we have the added complexity of Fyne run by ex Tannoy managers and it's causing a bit of a tizz and the nerds are running around like headless chickens arguing about it.

The simple answer is to listen to the things playing music and just compare the sound but then you get the problem of subjectivity which will never go away.

Until audiophiles learn the ability to come to a decision on what is the overall best system for their ears, they will forever remain unhappy.
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The speakers themselves are not particularly fussy about placement.
 
Steven Toy said:
The speakers themselves are not particularly fussy about placement.
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Hi Steve

This is news to me. The advantage of a Shahinian is that it is omnidirectional with no sweet spot. That is a big advantage that I am reluctant to give up.
 
Mick P said:
Hi Steve

This is news to me. The advantage of a Shahinian is that it is omnidirectional with no sweet spot. That is a big advantage that I am reluctant to give up.
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They need a bit of space behind them, but that's all. The drivers have wide dispersion characteristics so you can sit wherever you want.
 
The classic vintage Tannoys don’t need space behind them. They are designed to work against a wall, or in the case of the corner cabs, in corners. I think the ‘out in the room’ thing is only the modern Prestige range, the studio monitors are designed for soffit-mounting or flying.

PS Here’s a picture of my cabs when they were at Toe Rag studios, hung from the ceiling against the wall:

21673855715_78fd052070_b.jpg


(not my photo, it was taken from this Sound On Sound article)
 
Tony / Steve

What do you define a "vintage Tannoy".

For instance, would a Kensington or a Turnbury be classified as vintage. I have heard good things about these two.
 
Mick P said:
Tony / Steve

What do you define a "vintage Tannoy".

For instance, would a Kensington or a Turnbury be classified as vintage. I have heard good things about these two.
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I have Turnberry and they are part of the Prestige range - HE, so they could be decades old and made in this country (could)
 
Mick P said:
What do you define a "vintage Tannoy".

For instance, would a Kensington or a Turnbury be classified as vintage. I have heard good things about these two.
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For me ’vintage’ means London, i.e. Monitor Black, Silver, Red and Gold; the speakers made by the original Tannoy company owned by Guy R Fountain. This is the equivalent of JV-era Naim, or Peter Walker-era Quad. In the case of Tannoy the period from the 1940s through to 1973 when the company moved to Scotland and new ownership. That said this is a very purist view which some of us enjoy trolling for teh lols. Being more serious I’d also include the HPD and 39xx ranges of monitors (SRM, LRM, SGM, LRM, original Cheviot, Berkley, Arden etc as ‘proper’ Tannoys, and that takes the definition into the early ‘80s. That is a reasonable place to end ‘vintage’.

I’d consider anything more recent than this as ‘modern Tannoy’, so DMTs, Prestige range, D-series, the Cheviot and Arden reissues etc etc. This is also the point the EQ changed and they started to be designed more for free-space locations, though all the better ones still have compression horn energy and roll-off settings so can be tuned to a substantial degree. The big ones will fit most places. IIRC the ports on most of the Prestige range are shuttered too allowing for further positional tweaking.
 
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